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Shooting the White House: A Century of Fighting for Access

Last week, dozens of news outlets registered a formal complaint with Barack Obama’s White House, protesting its growing habit of bypassing news photographers and releasing “official” photos of important meetings and events. “As surely as if they were placing a hand over a journalist’s camera lens,” the complaint reads, “officials in this administration are blocking the public from having an independent view of important functions of the executive branch of government.” And this was a few weeks after New York Times photographer Doug Mills likened the White House press office to a Soviet news agency. “News photographers are angry because it threatens their livelihood,” writes Dana Milibank in his recent Washington Post column. “We all should be concerned that it smacks of propaganda.”
The fight over access to the president may be more public than ever before, but it is certainly not a new phenomenon. As photographer Dennis Brack, who curated this photo essay for POLITICO Magazine, tells us in his new book, Presidential Picture Stories: Behind the Cameras at the White House, it’s a battle photojournalists have been waging for decades. Above, news photographers jockey for position as President Harry Truman prepares to throw out the first ball on baseball’s Opening Day, probably 1948.

Ollie Atkins National Archives

Theodore Roosevelt

During the Teddy Roosevelt years, photographers were not allowed on the White House grounds, so they gathered by the gates, box cameras in hand. For the first half of the twentieth century, news photographers were former copyboys. Only the most aggressive ones rose through the ranks to become photographers, which meant that these early White House photographers were a tough class of men. But they dressed well.

Library of Congress

Woodrow Wilson

President Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke in late 1919. As few were allowed to know the severity of his ailment, access to the president was tightly controlled. But photographers had seen the doctors and medical equipment arriving at the White House and were under great pressure from their editors to get a photo of Wilson. One hopeful even snuck into a supply of hay delivered to the White House lawn (he was removed after a Secret Service agent noticed the abnormally lumpy hay).
Finally, in the summer of 1920, the first lady and the president’s physician invited photographer George Harris to the White House to take the above photograph of Wilson hard at work, to prove to the nation that he could perform his presidential duties. The photo shoot was highly controlled by Mrs. Wilson, who had to assist the president because his paralyzed arm could not steady the document. This may, in fact, be the first White House handout.

Harris & Ewing/Library of Congress

Warren G. Harding

When President Harding took office, White House photographers were permitted on White House grounds only for special occasions. But when Harding learned that the men clustering by the White House gates every day were photographers and not tourists, he decided that shutterbugs should have the same access to the White House as reporters, and he changed the policy, even building a shed on the grounds near the West Wing for photographers and their equipment. Harding had been the publisher of an Ohio newspaper before becoming president.
Not only did he consider photographers journalists, but he also knew the value of a good human-interest story, as evidenced above by this photo of Harding posing for the cameras with his new Airdale Laddie Boy.

Library of Congress

Herbert Hoover

Hoover was not such an easy subject. Not only was the president himself camera-shy (he banned press from his fishing retreat, known as “Camp Hoover”) but his wife was also determined to keep photographers at a distance—literally. Mrs. Hoover did not like the way the president’s double chins fell over his collar, and she thought that keeping the photographers 15 feet away would prevent them from taking close-up photographs that emphasized his weight. It seems that Mrs. Hoover controlled more than just her husband’s photo shoots. Above, the first lady directs a group of Girl Scouts posing for photos on the White House lawn.

National Photo Company, Library of Congress

Franklin D. Roosevelt

White House photographers faced many restrictions during the Roosevelt years. There were to be no pictures of the president in his wheelchair or even entering and leaving a room. But this didn’t seem to bother the photographers. Not only did they faithfully obey their orders, but they were also extremely fond of the president, whom they considered both a great subject and warm friend. Roosevelt gave his photographers nicknames (he called photographer Woodrow Wilson “Mr. President”) and asked them for horse-betting tips.
Above, Roosevelt selects the winners of the White House News Photographers Association contest himself.

White House News Photographers Association

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The only subject in the Roosevelt White House to which photographers had unrestricted access was the president’s dog, Fala.

Harris & Ewing, Library of Congress

Harry Truman

As a senator from Missouri, Truman got to know and like the regular Capitol Hill photographers. While all other Senate committees closed their proceedings to photographers, Truman’s committee investigating waste during wartime was open to cameras all the time. It is no surprise, then, that a few weeks after becoming president, while touring the White House pressroom, Truman asked, “Where are the photographers?” Told that they were not allowed, he responded, “I want them in here.” Daily Truman coverage could begin as early as five in the morning, when Truman took his daily walk around the city.
Above, Truman before a television address.

Harris & Ewing, Library of Congress

Dwight D. Eisenhower

President Eisenhower had no problem with cameras. As a general during World War II, he had learned that the best way to deal with photographers was to give them what they wanted—within reason, of course. Shortly after becoming supreme commander of the North Atlantic, Eisenhower was summoned to Capitol Hill. Opening a joint meeting of Congress, he admitted, “I did not assume when I came up here that I would have also to play a role that was more fitting to Hollywood. But … it seems that the photographer has become often the arbiter of our fate and the dictator of our time and so I, like another person, conform.” Above, Eisenhower with his own Stereo Realist Camera at Washington National Airport.

White House News Photographers Association

John F. Kennedy

Not only did President Kennedy have stringent rules, like FDR, but he also gave access to only a few photographers, from whom he demanded absolute loyalty. The major rule was simple enough: No pictures were to be taken of Kennedy wearing eyeglasses. Freelance photographer Jacques Lowe (pictured above photographing JFK) was a particular favorite until his photograph of the president with his reading glasses on top of his head appeared in the New York Times Magazine. When the president saw the picture, he told his press secretary, Pierre Salinger, to cut off Lowe’s access. “Jacques Lowe shit the nest and he’s got to go,” Kennedy told another photographer in the room.

Abbe Rowe, Department of Interior, National Archives

John F. Kennedy

After the reading-glasses incident, George Tames of the New York Times Magazine (pictured above in the Oval Office) replaced Lowe as the Kennedy favorite. It was Tames who took the historic “The Loneliest Job in the World” photograph.

Abbe Rowe, Department of Interior, National Archives

Lyndon Johnson

Johnson didn’t let his press secretary speak for him when it came to White House photographers. If he didn’t like a photograph, he would call the photographer in and do the scolding himself. In 1965, when Johnson raised his shirt to show the scar from his gall bladder surgery, the four photographers present were sure that he would get up and object right away. But Johnson didn’t say a word when the shutters began clicking. Johnson did lower his shirt quickly, but, according to a top aide, he wanted to dispel rumors of a more serious illness. Also during the Johnson years, Yoichi Okamoto became the first official White House photographer. On some occasions, Okamoto’s photographs were released to LIFE magazine.

Dennis Brack

Richard Nixon

President Nixon’s superb advance team helped make the first part of the Nixon administration easy for the White House photographers. Nixon proved a fairly willing subject, and even came to the photographers’ annual dinners, where he posed with the contest winners. That is, until Watergate—then the easy access stopped. Above, Nixon at a White House News Photographers Association event.

White House News Photographers Association

Gerald Ford

White House photographers had few complaints during the Ford years, largely thanks to official White House photographer David Hume Kennerly, who knew both pictures and his boss. When a photojournalist had a good idea for a photograph, Kennerly would help to make it happen. For example, after a new White House swimming pool was constructed, everyone wanted a picture. So all the White House photographers were invited to shoot the president’s morning swim.

David Hume Kennerly, Ford Presidential Library

Jimmy Carter

Photographers were lowest on President Carter’s list. He knew one thing about them: He didn’t want another David Hume Kennerly running around the White House snapping behind-the-scenes photographs. And so, during the Carter years, no one had much access, not even the official White House photographers. News photographers had even less. But even with such tight controls in place, things didn’t start so well for Carter. On his first day in office, with photographers in position to photograph a confident new president striding out of the Oval Office ready to reform government, he slipped on a tiny piece of ice. The next morning that photograph was on every front page. Things only went downhill from there.

Dennis Brack

Ronald Reagan

The good eye of White House staffer Michael Deaver and his desire to make iconic images of his ex-movie star boss made the Reagan years a dream for photographers. Five months before the president’s trip to Normandy for the 40th anniversary of D-Day, Deaver sent the first of several advance teams to plan the photographic coverage. As you can see above, the planning worked. Of course, it didn’t hurt to have a couple of actors as subjects.

Dennis Brack

George H.W. Bush

President Bush was a good friend to his photographers. He knew the regulars by name and took an interest in them, their health and their families. Each morning, on the way to the Oval Office, Bush would make a stop at the press room and ask, “How are you photodogs doing today?” Bush also trusted the photographers to follow the unwritten rule of presidential photography: In return for the access, what a photographer hears stays with him. They are there to take pictures and that’s it. Above, photographer Bernie Boston presents Bush with a “photodog” hat during a staff meeting.

Susan Biddle/The White House

Bill Clinton

As a presidential candidate, Clinton was always available for pictures, and photographers in the traveling press corps were his best buddies. As Clinton became more popular, however, the distance between him and his old chums widened, with the exception of Time cameramen, who were granted enviable access, and White House photographer Bob McNeely.
It was in the Clinton years, after the press office released a few official photographs that were received well in the national media, that releasing “handout” images became a regular practice. (Official White House photographers had only occasionally released their photos to media outlets in the past.) But with the handouts also came the fraying of the bond between White House beat photographers, angry not to have the chance to take the photos themselves, and the White House press office, happy to control what was circulated. Above, Clinton during Middle East peace talks.

Official White House handout

Barack Obama

The rift between the news photographers and the White House press office widened with the Obama administration’s decision to take advantage of technology like Flickr, Twitter and Instagram to distribute official photographs. No one doubts the integrity of White House photographer Pete Souza—he was, after all, a member in good standing of the White House News Photographers Association before he took the job—but with the widespread use of his images by the press office, events that used to be fair game for news photographers are now off limits.

Dennis Brack

Barack Obama

Some photographers object to the “public relations” nature of Souza's photos, which are approved and released by the White House press office. Though the White House has similarly tried to direct what photographs non-official news photographers take and release as well, it has, and will always be, unsuccessful. As James K. Atherton of the Washington Post once told the White House, "They don't pay me to make a picture of what you like. They pay me to make a picture of what they like." Above, the Obama family lights the National Christmas tree.